Mark Robinson, Republican candidate for North Carolina governor, speaks at his rally in Burnsville, September 14, 2024. Photo: Angela Wilhelm/Citizen Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Black pastors are condemning North Carolina gubernatorial candidate and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) for his prior statements against civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. However, white Evangelicals are still celebrating Robinson.
Earlier this month, a CNN investigation revealed that Robinson had previously called himself a “black Nazi” on a porn site and also said that he would own slaves if he could. Of Martin Luther King Jr., he said “Get that f**king commie bastard off the National Mall! I’m not in the KKK. They don’t let blacks join. If I was in the KKK I would have called him Martin Lucifer Koon!” He also said King was “worse than a maggot” and a “huckster.”
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King’s child, Martin Luther King III, condemned Robinson’s comments, telling NBC News “His praise for slavery, disparaging rhetoric, and grotesque characterization of my dad and his legacy are deeply worrisome for North Carolinians and all Americans who oppose racism and bigotry.”
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King III said that he and his wife will be supporting Robinson’s opponent, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, as well as “local candidates who will stand up for women, Black and Brown North Carolinians, and everyone else who Mark Robinson chooses to disparage.”
Bishop Sir Walter Mack of Union Baptist Church in Winston- Salem also alluded to Robinson’s comments, saying, “What we need to do is help people to understand what King stood for, and that was to unify people and to bring people together in the spirit of love, and that is the language and the method that we need to hold on to today. We won’t glorify anyone or anything that comes against the work and the legacy of Dr. King. It’s all about the love that he presented.”
Mycal Brickhouse, of Baptist Grove Church in Raleigh, said that Robinson’s statements show “a political leader who embraces a narrative of hatred and supremacy, creating more problems by casting a unifying leader as a threat. Instead of promoting polarizing and malicious views, we should learn from history’s lessons, and remember the negative effects of devaluing others’ humanity to boost one’s assumed superiority.”
Eric Vickers, pastor of Georgia’s Fairfield Baptist Church in Lithonia, said, “Among the numerous repulsive and erroneous assertions, to be a Black man in America and disrespect the sacrificial labor of Dr. King and the army of nonviolent, civil rights soldiers, is an affront to his ancestry and the freedoms he enjoys. He will have reduced himself to a bigot in blackface and a mascot for Project 2025.”
“At this point, for Mr. Robinson, the best way forward is the way out,” Vickers added. “It is clear that voting in this election is of great consequence and the church must be engaged and concerned about the kind of society we will inherit if we fail to participate.”
When former President Donald Trump endorsed Robinson, he called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids.” This is despite the fact that Robinson once called King a bad pastor and a communist and called the Black Civil Rights Movement a communist plot to “subvert capitalism” and “to subvert free choice.”
Robinson has publicly stated that he will not be withdrawing his candidacy from the election, with the opportunity to formally remove himself from the ballot having passed last week. Stein, meanwhile, is up by 14 points according to recent polls by Elon University.
White Evangelicals, meanwhile, are sticking with Robinson.
“I do not know what’s true and what’s not true,” said Dwight Frazier, a church member at Central Baptist Church in Henderson, who attended a luncheon led by the American Renewal Project, a group that encourages Christian pastors and church members to enter into North Carolina politics. “Everybody has something that’s wrong in their past and does some things they wouldn’t be proud of. I think he loves the Lord and I think he’s trying to do the right thing. He’s still a good man, in my opinion.”
The American Renewal Project’s founder and leader, David Lane, maintained that Robinson is “brilliant.”
“I don’t know what’s truth and untruth in terms of the allegations against him, but I don’t regret all that we did,” said Lane. “He was fabulous. It’s just that, from a biblical standpoint, Old and New Testament, man is born in sin.”
